Alexander Browne

Thanks for those links! I'll be sure to check out the films there that I haven't yet Reminds me of the well know Orson Welles quote "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

I'm a huge fan of the one shot approach but I don't really see it as a way of cutting corners. Generally I think it means more a need for more hours/talent from art department, director and actors (and it's been suggested DOP) in order for it to work. Your more likely to find this kind of approach in the output of pretty non-commercial but incredibly talented directors. As well as the obvious ones (Ozu, Bresson) there are a few folk continuing this way of filmmaking today, notably Zhang Ke Jia, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Theo Angelopoulos and Tsai Ming Liang. Check out "What Time is Is There". I can't think of a single scene where "coverage" even comes into it.

Pierrot le Fou - comic and moving

The opening shot of Millenium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien) I find quite beautiful.

I agree completely. I pretty new to this game and I haven't studied in a proper school so I find it a little hard to explain myself clearly in the kind of language you guys would be fluent with. I really enjoy Ozu's work or more modern films like "Miller's Crossing"; the films of Hsiao-hsien Hou... One of my favourite films in terms of cinematography is Kurosawa's "high and low". All of these have very minimal camera movement but it seems motivated. You can tell the director and cinematographers think in the third and forth dimensions, even though the camera remains stationary most of the time. This is generally appreciable in the times when the camera does move, or the precise angle and position of the camera and lights relative to the blocking of the action when using a tripod. An non-specific example that comes to mind would be the later films of Kieslowski when you'll frequently find the talent interacting with the light over the course of time - eg. stepping into/ out of it.... This is cinematography and not just photography to me. The difference is perhaps if you gave a cinematographer a still camera and asked him - how would you photograph this scene? Then threw him a bolex and said this is what's happening in the scene, how would you shoot it now? His two answers might be different. You would know better than me though! A photographer would give the same answer twice, essentially. Do you think thats a fair comment?

One thing that occurs to me is that from time to time I will watch a film and it really strikes me that I haven't been watching "cinematography" but merely "photography". Clearly there is a grey area between the roles of the DP and the director here... I'm talking about when the camera doesn't seem to recognise the forth dimension or perhaps interact with the third. Sure, there's camera movement but not in any studied way (ie some sort of TV style "spice up some boring stuff" dolly). The passing of time in any shot seems to be almost insignificant in camera. I seem to remember The Weather Man (2005) was like this, which I thought was pretty well photographed. I don't know if that adds anything?

I use one of these http://www.sgpro.co.uk/ - fairly inexpensive and effective (I think the pro35 etc do not justify there extremely high price - I would shoot 35mm if I had that much money) and this adapter is now available with PL mount if you want to rent lenses. Adapters have some associated headaches - I've never tested it but my camera feels significantly less than 100 asa with it on. BTW, I'm not connected with the manufacturers in any way! Cheers, Alex